Good news. I've got both the
Saga 1 keyboard and a copy of
YS MegaBasic(Whoopee! Ed).
The keyboard is good, very
good and with it the Speccy's a
very effective word processor.
Trouble is MegaBasic just
didn't work. So, following your
advice in YS 18, I contacted
Saga for their free add-on that
remedies the problem. I am
shaken and delighted to report
that by return of post the bit
arrived and it worked first time.
(Whoooopeeee! Ed). This is
rare and very impressive.
Thank you Saga and YS.Barrie Fairest
St Mary's, Isles of Scilly

Oh, it was nothing really -
nice of you to mention it. Bask,
bask. Not that we can take all
the credit (Oh, yes we ruddy
well can! Ed). OK, we're taking all the credit but if anyone
wants to thank Saga or acquire
their own free and gratis add-
on, give 'em a ring on (04862)
22777. Troubleshootin 'Pete.

.

KEYBOARD KLUTZ

If you've got a 'real' Speccy
keyboard, here are a couple of
tips. If you want the dull thud
of an IBM rather than the
cheap klack as you hit each
key, try the draught excluder
method. This involves carefully
prising off each key and laying
strips of rubber draught
excluder under each line of
keys so that they hit it just at
the end of its travels. You'll
find this method works well
with the Dk'tronics, Fuller,
FDS, Transform and the new
LMT.
Another trick to make the
keys feel more solid is to invert
each individual key and fill
them with plasticene or hot
candle wax!Andrew Tisdall
Swords, Co. DublinAnd if you come over here,
boys and girls, I've got one that
we prepared earlier. What
d'you mean, it's dripping
candle wax all over the floor?
How was I to know you were
going to switch it on and use it?
You know how hot they get!
Hahem, on to the next item,
kiddies ... Ed.

.

DOUBLE TROUBLE

Hellooo. I'm writing on two
matters of intergalactic importance. First, referring to ish 18, I
have not, nor wish to have any
connection with this Rump
Numbrain person who is just
an unoriginal wally. (Phew, I'm
glad we got that one straight.
People were starting to talk. Ed)
Secondly, I'm appealing to

f o r u m

If you've got something to say for yourself, then speak out! The star letter writer is in for a bundle of free software! Mail us a missive to Forum, Your Spectrum, 14
Rathbone Place, London W1P 1DE.

This command gets around
the problems involved in a
'crash set' ERR_SP by resetting this system variable. Also,
there's no need for an EI, as
this command is automatically
executed at the end of the
routine. Plus, the RST 8 is now
redundant as NEW eventually
drops back into Basic anyway.
If all this sounds too good to
be true, let me admit now that
there is one disadvantage.
You'll find that the system
variables RAMTOP,
P_RAMT, RASP, PIP and
UDG are preserved by the
routine but you can skirt round
this with a bit of judicious
POKEing (or LDing).
The only other minor
annoyance is that any screen
display is erased and you can't
get round this with any amount
of POKEs. But if all you're
after is a spot of hacking, then
this shouldn't have you tearing
your hair out.
Now this really was an
obvious piece of coding, so
come on Ed, give Pennell a
POKE up the user prot.David Shaw
Walsall
Founder member of the 'I
think Gollum deserved everything he got' society.

I've consulted all the major
medical dictionaries but as yet
no luck on locating Andy's
prot. If this is another sordid
example of the Shaw family
sending each other coded
messages in their fiendish bid
to take over this letters
paaagh ... Ed. Now he knows
where his prot is! Well, we
Shaws have got to stick
together. T.P. Grrr ... pass the
superglue ... Ed.

.

SPACE INVADER

Now look here Mr so-called
Editor, I am a v. annoyed
Speccy owner from Caversham, somewhere on the third
moon of Jupiter and I have
several problems. (You're
telling me! So-called Ed). OK,
insanity is one of them.
1 Why do I pay a six horned
paper thing that rode all the
way to your planet and back to
fetch me YS only to find that
they do not accept Mega
noodles as currency in your
mangey newsagents?2 When I got YS 18 in my scaly
paw I typed in the JSW II
POKEs only to find that Eddie,
my computer, NEWed. Is it
me, is it Eddie or is the
management prepared to
accept responsibility?3 There's no Star Letter in the
August ish. Now come on, the
drink can't affect you boys and
girls at Castle Rathbone that
much, can it?4 If you don't print this I'll

.

the squillions of people who
read your purely incredible
(kereeep!) mag. Does anyone
have a Brother HR-5 printer
and a Kempston 'E' Centronics
interface? How do I get hi-res
copy to work properly on it?
Oh, come on, there must be
someone? Anyway, until someone writes in, I'll keep
headbanging my brick wall.
S'long!Thomas 'The Original Erauqs'
Smith
Lewisham

No, tell me it's not true. (It's not
true. T.P.) Tell me there can't
be two of them. (There can't be
two of them. T.P.) I couldn't
stand it if they both kept writing
in repeating each other.
(... repeating each other. T.P.)
Aaargh! Ed.

.

NOT KNOWN AT
THIS ADDRESS

Finally, you've driven me to dig
out my copy of Tasword Two
and pen this letter of
complaint. Well, not a real
complaint but a slap in the face
for T.P. Take that. (Ouch, that
hurt! TP.) In YS 18, he came
up with a method of using the
screen by addressing it directly.
Could he have made it any
more long-winded or more
difficult? (Probably. Ed) Now,
here comes my program. Just
type in this code using an
assembler or hex loader -
aaaargh! (Well he hit me
first! TP.)
LD B,N 06 N load y co-ord into B
LD C,N 0E N load x co-ord into C
CALL 22AAH CD AA 22 call ROM routine
LD (NN),HL 22 NN save HL
LD (NN),A 32 NN save A
RET C9 return
All numbers are in hex.
Now to use the program,
POKE the two co-ordinates
and run the code then PEEK
the address and bit number.
The address is contained in the
location where the HL registers
were saved. So, why couldn't
T.P. do that? (Where shall I
start? Ed)
Please note that I haven't
done any crawling. I've also not
asked for a Trainspotter Award

.

though one would be nice to fill
the space left on the wall where
my last poster fell down. (I'll
pop a life-size piccy of Tony
'Slim' Samuels in the post to
you - that should cover most
of your bedroom walls and
some of the ceiling as well! Ed)Richard Relf
Epsom, Surrey.

FROM BAD TO
VERSE

In computing circles (so I've
heard it said)
There's a growing concern for a
fellow called Ed.
He writes weird little
comments on letters he's read
And we think that he isn't quite
right in the head!

To add to the problem he's
joined by a freak
With the terrible title of
Troubleshootin' Pete
(Poetic licence, that bit) (Huh,
off licence, you mean! TP.)
We've tried to decide which
one is the worse -
But they're neither as bad as
this horrible verse!Miss J R Wood
Altrincham, Cheshire

Well, JR, what can I say?
Your verse quite takes my
breath away,
T P.'s a freak, I must agree,
But what's this rot you say
about me?
Writing here does take some
guts
'Cos reading your letters just
drives me nuts! Ed.

Cast your minds back to Hacking Away, YS 18 and you'll
remember J Eagleson's cries
for help in escaping from
machine code programs. Well,
there's a simpler solution to the
problem than using EI
followed by RST 8. And what
is this magical instruction?
Why, 'tis JP 11B7h. (Tip o'me
tongue! Ed). It jumps to the
Speccy ROM routine that
performs a NEW command.

keep phoning T.P. and tell him
how mega amazing he is and
what a good editor he'd make
until he's unbearable.From just your normal
average one horned, three
eyed guy,
Caversham, Jupiter

1 Change your newsagent, or
better still take out a subscription.2 The management admits
nuzzing. It's you but it could be
Eddie. Have you tried using a
Spectrum?3 Hic!4 More unbearable?
Impossible! Ed

editorial red pen. Take that.
Ed). Say, those JSW II POKEs
sure are good. Of course, I
could've told you how to crack
it but I didn't want to show you
up in front of your fan.
(Careful. The pen is on
standby. Ed).
Finally, I know who this
month's trainspotter is. Yep,
it's yours truly! (Well, it's not -
so all you're getting is an
editorial short back and sides.
Ed).John Hawke
Roy Bridge, Bonnie Scotland
P.S. I'm a Devonian by birth.

I knew there had to be an
explanation. T.P. went to
Devon on his hols this year and
he's never been the same since.
Not that he was the same
before, of course. Ed.

.

YOU CAN 'AVE
'IM ...

I have kidnapped Dave
Nicholls. Unless you send me a
Porsche 924, a Trainspotter
Award, a Discovery 1 disk
drive, a VTX 5000 modem and

£1 million worth of Speccy
software, he will be released.
Anyway back to semi-sanity.
You made a right cock-up of
last month's YS, didn't you?
(There now follows a string of
falsehoods, libellous
accusations and perfidious pretenses that won't make it to the
page, as no Trainspotter Award
is forthcoming. Ed). Were you
so gobsmacked at the disappearance of the hairy Hacker?
If not, why not? If you give me
the aforementioned objects, I
may persevere in perusing your
puny pamphlet. If not, I'll tell
all my mates (Think of a number less than two and then halve
it! Ed) not to read your mag.
OK? (OK! Ed).
P.S. Hurry up with the ransom,
he's getting up my nose.Brian 'Wimpo' Hitch
Grimsby, Sth Humberside

OK, OK you win - the goodies
are in the post. All except the
Trainspotter Award - you
must know by now that no-one
has ever managed to beg,
borrow, steal or blackmail one
of these coveted awards. And
may his Hairyness forever
moult over your carpet. Ed.

.

Star LetterSPLASH IT ALL
OVER!

Through rain and shine, I battled my way through Frank
Bruno's Boxing. My head was
smashed in by the Canadian
Crusher and my ribs were decimated by Fling Long Chop.
But finally I came through and
KOed Peter Perfect - and for
what I ask? I'll tell you what -
a bit of cheap advertising for
Scooby Doo and a line about
extra boxers on a new tape! So
now my thoughts are so rebellious
to good ol' Franky and
the Elite mob that I've negotiated
with my pet do to dish
out the vibes to all the wimps
who can't play the big fist on
their own. First though, you'll
have to use my game name
JAY, before entering the following EVBA membership
codes:

Fling Long Chop

A9SINBD9A

Andra Puncheredov

F3WIOLBAB

Tribal Trouble

O7QIOIJC5

Frenchie

91UIIAHL9

Ravioli Mafiosi

B4XIONFC7

Antipodean Andy

ABRINMDO7

Peter Perfect

92VIICBAA

Scooby Doo

M3VIIBEI4

Yours forever brain damagedJason Hinney
Borehamwood, Herts

Right then, better get the glove
on and get out there - into the
black 'n' blue corner. Take that!
Ed

Toni Baker's Interrupt
Manager in YS 16 [sic] worked
wonderfully until I tried it with
a Kempston interface attached,
when it NEWed. That's
because the value on the data
bus when an interrupt occurs
can be any number from 0 to
FFH, so the way in which the
interrupt vector routine was
initialised meant that the
program couldn't work.
This is where yours truly
comes to the rescue. First, load
the Interrupt Manager and type
in this program carefully:10 CLEAR 61419
20 FOR a=61420 TO 61460
30 READ a: POKE a,b: NEXT a
40 SAVE "intruptmng" CODE 61420,123
50 DATA 33, 253, 253, 54, 195, 35,
54, 21, 35, 54, 240, 33, 103, 240, 17,
104, 240, 1, 80, 0, 113, 237, 176, 33,
0, 254, 1, 253, 0, 113, 35, 16, 252,
113, 62, 254, 237, 71, 237, 94, 201
Save the new version of the
program and call the routine
with RAND USR 61420. The
only drawback is that you can't
store anything from 65021 to
65281.Richard Chaney
Hull, North Humberside

Now why didn't I think of that?
Troubleshootin 'Pete. Answers
on a postcard please! Ed.

.

NEW POKE
SENSATION?

You asked for it. Here's the
most useful modification to
JSW II that I can think of. And
this is what you do. First, load
in the Basic and find the
RAND USR start address. Set
the variable A equal to this
value, then enter the following
line of Basic:POKE A,195: POKE A+1,0: POKE A+2,0
Needless to say that this works
on JSW and JSW II as well as a
lot of other games that are on
sale in the shops at the
moment.
Since the only letters that
appear in Forum have a creep
in them, I suppose that mine
had better have one. I can
honestly say - with my fingers
crossed - (Worra creep you
are. I'm not gonna print that!
Ed)Ian Ravenscroft
Stoke-on-Trent

I can honestly say (without my
fingers crossed) that your
amendment to JSW is the most
mega I've yet come across. And
no, I'm certainly not letting you
lot into the secret of what it does.
So, don't come creepin 'round
me. Troubleshootin 'Pete.

Ah-ha! think you can catch
all of us mere mortals out by
changing the piccies round,
eh?
OK, it's just because I don't
work at YS and I don't get
sudden urges to start
rambling on about large
amounts of Hex - my simple
computer logic is: IF object =
game THEN PLAY object,
ELSE leave for someone else
to explain it.
Rambling again. This letter's about my amazing bit of
trainspotting in YS 18. Correct me if I'm wrong (Don't
worry, we will. Ed) - I mean
I only have Quackshot - but,
you appear to have swopped
the screen shot with some
unknown game called Metabolis.[Note]
Please can I have a Trainspotter Award, nice Mr
Headman, he whose shining
armpits are the very substance of life to so many YS
underlings (T.P. included).
(That's what you think,
matey. I wouldn't like to tell
you what sustains me through
the long hard grind that is YS,
but it's certainly not his lordship's armpits. T.P.)

C'mon, made-up name,
made-up town, in-Gordano
my foot. But you're still this
month's trainspotter. And for
why, you ask? Well, just look
at what I had to wade
through. Threats from Crispin 'Hawkeyes' Tucker -
"this is voted Trainspotter
Award by my gerbils, Harry
and Angus, who'll bite your
ankles if it isn't". Oh no, not
the gerbils. Or this from a
Vogon called D B Edwards,
"So, Earthlings, I present you
with a simple choice, either
die in the vacuum of space ...
or tell me I've won the award."
Such is the hoover of life, eh?
Then there are jokes like this
one from Paul Edwards - "I
went to the Costa del Sol for
my holiday this year, does this
make me worthy of the Spain
Trotter award?" Did I say
jokes? And then there's Chris
Richardson going for the
sympathy vote, "Just send the
award to the above address
and I'll be happy. If you don't
I shall cry." You're all
gonna have to do better than
this next month! Ed.

NOTE: The issue 18 Joystick Jury page on this site has the screenshots the correct way around.